Crazy stuff your parents did that would have social services out now

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Dipping the dummy in sugar, fizzy juice for toddlers…did your parents do anything that would be considered shocking now?

For me, I looked after my younger siblings when I was 11 (they were 8 and 5) overnight a few times a week due to clashes of my mum & dad’s nightshift work. No adults in the house, just the three of us. It didn’t cross my mind that it was crazy at the time but when I think back, it was insane.

There's a picture of me in the early 80s as a toddler on the beach naked from the waist down with a fag end in my mouth I'd found in the sand.

My parents lit our coal fire with a gas poker which consisted of a hose connected to a gas tap behind the cooker that ran into the living room with a ‘gas poker’ at the other end that was stuck in to the coal and lit. Then newspaper was placed over the fireplace to ‘draw’ the fire, sometimes this caught fire and my mum or dad would come running in to put it out (with bare hands or the tongs). My brother and I were sat about 4 foot away while all this took place. We did have a fire guard though

Sitting on the arm-rest between the two front seats of the car, looking out of the front window while father drove.

The cigarette smoke. Medical visitors coming to the house to check my breathing, and having to puff down a cardboard tube into a meter, are among my earliest memories. Parents smoked everywhere, and the house was blue with the fumes. Asking my mother, "why are your fingers yellow?" is another early recollection.

Being strapped to the bed around my wrists and the bedframe with my father's belts, to go to sleep.

Being threatened with being taken away or having brain vivisection carried out on me at the slightest hint of misbehaviour. Well, a little child would only know to believe their parents.

The violence. Literally shaking all through the weekend when my father was home, waiting for the next explosion. I was taken to the doctor for nervous behaviour but the village medic said it was all down to my attitude. Prescribed Valium which I once took accidentally to OD because I was hungry at school.

Crikey, I didn't know it was going to go this dark. From ages 3 to 18, by the way. Apparently, I'm a very peaceful senior educator and personal tutor these days, my annual appraisals tell me. And, apart from all that, my parents really valued education; they were both self-taught, before and during the war.

My chubby brother bounced so vigorously in his bouncy chair that he bounced himself off the table they had put him on. I also allegedly went missing and was found crawling up the middle of the road in my nappy. Someone had left the garage door open. I say allegedly as there are certain factors that make me question it.
When my son was a baby, I had him in his pram as I locked the front door. There was a path from the door with two stone steps leading onto the pavement. We lived on a busy main road. The path was on an.incline and of course, I didn't put the brakes on. The pram scooted off down the path, down the 2 steps and into the main road, all without tipping up. Miraculously, I got to him before a car did and to this day I think it was because it was still relatively early in the day and the traffic hadn't got bad yet.

Pretty much everything you said would have been a valid referral to social services even back when you were a child.

I'm sorry no-one was looking out for you.

Gosh I can't think of anything, though my mum was a social worker so maybe that's why! I walked to the shop on my own from about age 8. But DS started doing that at 9 so not that different. I think going abroad when a DC is 15 is fine if they're responsible.

I think one of the key differences is what was referred and what was acted on was very, very different then and now.

at one point my father was fined for something he did to one of my siblings. The SW still checked us off the list shortly after as it had been dealt with.

One of my earliest memories is of a SW telling us (mostly my older siblings - I was much younger than them being the accidental late mistake) how horrible children’s homes were. After they left my siblings made a pact to say nothing to anyone ever because they sounded even worse than home.

BuddyandTinsel
Pretty much everything you said would have been a valid referral to social services even back when you were a child.

I'm sorry no-one was looking out for you.

I agree. Being strapped to a bed with belts to sleep is extreme abuse and would have been taken very seriously even then.

"One of my earliest memories is of a SW telling us (mostly my older siblings - I was much younger than them being the accidental late mistake) how horrible children’s homes were. After they left my siblings made a pact to say nothing to anyone ever because they sounded even worse than home."

Sadly they are, or were, but current homes will not be worse than an abusive home situation. Though the life chances (and connected figures) for those having been in care is poor.

Though I'm basing that on knowing some of the children from a home near our road of large houses. It was a converted house and it was just dreadful, according to the teenage residents. They weren't allowed beyond the front garden but we did occasionally stop and talk to them.

Yeah, even back then I doubt they were worse than what we lived with, certainly most of them wouldn’t have been.

All three of my elder siblings have physical scars, mostly from the iron, from the abuse. I had six recorded broken bones by the time we were taken by our GPs when I was 7.

If my school teacher hadn’t been so determined to push and push one of us would have been killed.

"Yeah, even back then I doubt they were worse than what we lived with, certainly most of them wouldn’t have been.

All three of my elder siblings have physical scars, mostly from the iron, from the abuse. I had six recorded broken bones by the time we were taken by our GPs when I was 7.

If my school teacher hadn’t been so determined to push and push one of us would have been killed"

I'm very glad your teacher did manage to help! Stupid of the SW to say that about the homes as you would have been safer with absolute certainty.

Sorry you had to go through that.

It isn't discredited it'just the advice is now to get out and let your home burn to the ground instead of trying to sort it, it's all a bit namby-pamby.

Two sibling brothers and me. Stripping us naked all in the same room.

Beating us with various items such as large wooden spoons and canes.

Looking for “the truth” about something ridiculously trivial…

I really miss mum and dad. 😫

Me and my friend, both 14, and her sister who was just 11/12 going to the under 18s night at a local nightclub and walking the 30 minute walk home by ourselves at 10/11pm at night! Dressed in 90s fashion of short skirts, skimpy tops and chunky, high strappy shoes!

dm used a feather duster for corporal punishment.

Both parents had long working hours , and we were left home alone for a few hours at primary school age everyday during the week.

Taking a picture of me and my brother (I was 5 and he was 2) naked and putting it in the family album, thank goodness they didn't have Instagram in those days!

Smacking as punishment or discipline - nowadays that would be classed as assault especially in a public place (e.g. grabbing a toddler and smacking them for misbehaving in the shops).

Licking a hankie and using it to wipe sticky hands and faces - these days it would be unhygienic.

Leaving a 9 year old alone with a younger child for 5 minutes.